Crampons Protect People
The body moving on top of him, sweating, a little drop on that forehead, dropping down, in his eye, burning.
A muscled torso, flat, tiny nipples, raised above the surface. A loud gasp when it is pinched. Once more, harder. He never comes from this, it is too far outside his body's knowledge. And it hurts. There is a burning feeling, a feeling of uncomfortable fullness, that threatens to overtake him. Also the occasional stab of sharp pain of course, starting from that one muscle being stretched and reproducing through his back muscles, his shoulders, constricting his throat in a gasp.
The response is faster, harder, until he feels more going into him, powerless to stop it, and it burns too a little, with its stickiness and viscosity.
Then bodies pulling apart and he's alone and cold, because someone else's sweat is drying on him, stealing his heat.
They never talk about it, Sherlock and him. It just happens, hidden by the night and created by the hatred they feel for each other. Morning will be normal again.
oOo
It's obliged happiness and subverted fear.
They eat dinner, stumbling over safe topics (different methods of asphyxiation, the best way to eviscerate someone, the exact time it takes to drown in icy water), until one of them falls and takes the other with them.
They're mountaineers with an ugly blue-and-yellow polyester rope holding them together. They will stubbornly push the spikes on their feet into the ice, because the only way is up, and they will both refuse to think about what happens when they reach the top. (they should jump and fly and then break every bone in their bodies landing on top of each other)
When Sherlock falls, he says something like: "What does it matter whether she told him? How is that relevant?"
John will stiffen in his chair, his mouth a straight thin line, and Sherlock will notice and tell him to stop being so sentimental, that it doesn't become him. He will slowly lift his cup to his mouth, showing how trivial he thinks this all is, that even drinking tea matters more. The cup will shatter, after John's hand connects with Sherlock's wrist, to twist it painfully behind Sherlock's back, and it is usually over the back of the couch, clothes on, from behind.
When John falls it goes like: "To leave her like that, God. Some people are so selfish."
Sherlock is more cruel by nature. He takes John's shoulder, the bad one, and just lays his hand there.
"We're selfish creatures by nature. It's how we survive," he will tell John, while guiding him to the bedroom by slight pressure on his shoulder. He will undress him and then himself, leaving John naked on his back to watch a body too similar to his own. It will be slow, and drawn out.
Sometimes they even fall on purpose. (another screw mounted on the ice-wall, an anchoring point of protection for the rope between them)
This is what they do: take pleasure from the other, regardless. This is what they offer each other: their pain for the other's pleasure.
oOo
Days can go by, where their play at normalcy almost functions. The silences are almost exactly like before, same length, same depth, same vector. But now they're punishing, to see who breaks first, all a competition though neither knows what they're competing for.
John goes on dates, and when the silence has been particularly long, he will break it with the moans from the woman in his bed, revelling in getting pleasure out of her twice, three times perhaps.
oOo
Sherlock despises the pleasure his body seems to take, bent over, the rough denim of John's jeans excoriating the skin right below his buttocks, and he revels in his own abhorrence.
He is mentally in charge of the whole situation, knows the variables that pushed along this chain of cause and effect, can stop at any given point, though his body keeps moaning of its own volition.
Sometimes - but Sherlock is not the kind of man to admit to such weaknesses - he thinks the moans might be those of being stuck with the strange pain he has felt ever since he saw John Watson saying goodbye to him over a headstone bearing his name. (and John deserves to hear those moans)
And occasionally, lying on top of John, stroking in and out of him in an excruciatingly slow pace. He contemplates touching John, really touching him, how it would be to make a man come from his hands.
He knows he is off, but he takes great pleasure in the thought that humanity's precious virginity was taken from him through a fistfight, three punches to his stomach (two reciprocated), and a black eye for both participants involved. He also enjoys John's oblivion on that count.
Mostly though he just feels pounding hate/panic, because it is not like before and it is all John's fault. Except when he is fucking, then the skin under him, on him is unbearably hot, but his chest cavity is icy and spiky.
oOo
Others notice of course. For all Sherlock's laments about the powers of observation of the rest of them, the under-pressure when both of them are together in a room, sucks out their air and energy.
Sherlock is not approached, barring Mrs Hudson, who breaks down in a room stuffed full with silence and starts shrieking and crying for them to 'work it out'.
Both feel they are doing nothing but working.
Greg Lestrade brusquely asks John once, but receives no answer. After that Sherlock has free rein over crime scenes, the members of the investigative team intuitively shying away, without being able to pinpoint why.
John is always there of course, standing in the corners, making incomplete observations and wrong deductions. Sherlock wants him desperately to leave, occasionally saying so. That always ends the same (against the front door, hands on wrists, come on a shirt) though different routes are taken (John refusing, the difficult climb, John leaving, the easier but longer path)
The most enjoyable interference is Mycroft, because he is so obviously in over his head, sitting in their flat, four pieces of clothing too much for the weather outside.
"Four months, " he says, but this is something he won't solve. (he is the ice-queen, his throne on that mountain)
Though perhaps: a sliver of companionship in the way John marches Mycroft out the door, and Sherlock observes.
oOo
The weather is punishing, ninety degrees in the moistness of London is close to unbearable. One small fan providing paltry air movement with a rattling noise that grinds on the nerves.
The silence has been unbroken for 82 hours (too hot to go out and pull someone). Sherlock lying on the sofa, minimally dressed, tossing bits of metal against the bin (ting, ting, ting, ting). John doing the dishes, the clattering sound of dirty plates not drowning out fan nor Sherlock.
The water colours red with blood, and John swears about the cut between thumb and index finger. It's not deep but ragged - bread knife - and he blunders into the living room in search of a plaster pressing a flannel against his skin.
Sherlock gets up and catches John's wrist, pulling away the fabric, blood welling up from the wound. He brings it to his mouth and sucks.
They stand there, a good many squeaks of the fan, then John pulls his hand away and Sherlock's face to his.
They kiss, and for a first kiss, it is marvellous.